A Hawaii woman’s quest to locate the pictures of every soldier who died in the Vietnam War, state-by-state, has reached Tooele County.
Janna Hoehn is working with Faces Never Forgotten, a program through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund that is working to locate pictures for every soldier who died in the war and raise funds for an education center at the memorial in Washington, D.C.
The pictures will appear on the Wall of Faces, an online memorial of photos that correspond with every name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Ten local young men who served in the Vietnam War were killed in combat and Hoehn is reaching out to the community in the hopes of finding the missing photographs of four: Lyndsey F. Fonger (1946-1966) of Tooele; Joseph M. Mermejo (1949-1969) of Stockton; John R. Oakey (1943-1966) of Grantsville and Dan B. Yarbrough (1949-1969) of Tooele.
Hoehn said anyone with information on any of the four men’s missing photos, even what high school they attended, can help. Family, friends or classmates with any photographs or information should reach out to Hoehn by email at neverforgotten2014@gmail.com.
Anyone with a picture of any other soldier who died in Vietnam can also submit photos, even if a photo is already on the website, vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces, Hoehn said in a news release. So far more than 41,000 photos have been collected for the 58,307 soldiers that died in Vietnam.
Hoehn first became involved with Faces Never Forgotten after a trip to Washington, D.C., six years ago. A high school student during the Vietnam War, the memorial was her first stop and she stopped to take a rubbing of the name of an MIA soldier, Gregory John Crossman.
While she had no connection to Crossman, Hoehn attempted to track down Crossman’s family or a photograph of him. Her cousin eventually managed to find a photo, which she sent in to Faces Never Forgotten after reading a newspaper article about the organization.
The photo Hoehn submitted was the first of Crossman and Jan Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, sent her an email, asking if she was willing to track down the remaining pictures missing for Maui County.
Hoehn accepted the task, using phone books, high school yearbooks and obituaries to try and find the remaining photographs. After completing Maui County, Hoehn turned her search to Native American soldiers, then all soldiers from Hawaii, California, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, Alaska and Hawaii.
To date, Hoehn said she’s collected more than 1,400 photographs since May 2013.
“Putting a face with a name changes the whole dynamic of the Wall,” she said, in the release. “It keeps our fallen heroes memories alive and will honor them.”
To learn more about Faces Never Forgotten, visit vvmf.org/faces-never-forgotten.